Wednesday, 10 July 2013

PAGE BY PAGE: Two popular city bookstores report on this summer's bestsellers

It's that time of year when countless Jamaicans hit the bookstores to get their hands on great reads that will have them turning pages well into the night. So we couldn't help but dial up two of Kingston's most popular booksellers -- Bookland and Bookophilia -- to hear which titles (local and international) are most in demand right now. Over at Bookland (Knutsford Boulevard, New Kingston), current top sellers are a mix of classics and more recent fare, including Kei Miller's The Same Earth and The Last Warner Woman; Enid Donaldson's Real Taste of Jamaica; Anthony Winkler's The Lunatic and The Painted Canoe, as well as the Edward Seaga autobiography My Life and Leadership; The Power and The Glory by Michael Grant, Hubert Lawrence and Bryan Cummings, and Usain Bolt's 9.58 My Story: Being the World's Fastest Man. Their fiction-loving customers have a yen for the latest by the likes of Stephen King, Christine Feehan and John Grisham.

Up at the Hope Road-based Bookophilia, the titles flying off the shelves include Stephanie Saulter's acclaimed debut Gem Signs, Junot Diaz's short-story collection This Is How You Lose Her, Diana Macaulay'sHuracan, and Harry Belafonte's memoir My Song. Not to be outdone, such international authors as Louise Erdrich (The Round House), Monisha Jolie Amin (Dancing to the Flute) and John Green (The Salt in Our Stars) currently rank highly among the bestsellers. Contact Bookophilia, 92 Hope Road (978-5248) and Bookland, 53 Knutsford Blvd, New Kgn. (926-4035)